FAA plan irks workers, leaders

Agency wants to move approach control to Miami

January 15, 2008|By Dianna Cahn Staff Writer

Air traffic controllers, homeowners, pilots and county, state and federal legislators all peppered Federal Aviation Administration representatives Monday with scornful questions about why they would move radar approach control out of Palm Beach County.

The FAA wants to move the TRACON, or Terminal Radar Approach Control, currently at Palm Beach International Airport, to Miami International Airport, where the Palm Beach County and Miami controllers would work side by side.

TRACON directs incoming and outgoing air traffic as far as 50 miles out from a terminal. It hands off to tower control when planes get to within 5 miles of an airport. The FAA says TRACON controllers will be looking at the same radar images whether they are sitting in West Palm Beach or Miami. And the move will save money in upgrading equipment in both locations while services to the entire region would remain unaffected.

"This is nothing new," said John McCartney, FAA regional director, citing similar co-locations of radar systems control in both Southern California and Northern California and for the three airports that serve the Washington, D.C., area. "There will be no change to the level of service or the level of safety. What we fully expect is greater efficiency."

But few in the audience Monday night agreed. They worried about "putting all their eggs in one basket," as Shane Ahearn, a union spokesman for the Palm Beach International controllers, described it.

"When you consolidate facilities, you are concentrating risk," Ahearn said. "We are very passionate about this being a mistake."

McCartney and his colleagues pointed out that by consolidating operations at one location, they could upgrade to state-of-the-art equipment and operations would actually be more efficient.

Audience members asked the five FAA officials if any plans were available detailing contingencies in case of emergency, and if there was a detailed breakdown of staffing and of how sectors would be drawn up.

But the men sitting at the front of the room had few details to offer. They promised to supply answers.

"You got no documentation. You've got no contingency plans. You've got nothing but talk," said Jim Marinitti, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union in Miami. "People have questions. You have no documentation."

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, said the low morale among controllers and the industry's rapid loss of its professionals is confounded by the FAA's unwillingness to heed their concerns on this matter. Hastingswho has inserted language blocking the TRACON consolidation into bills that won House of Representatives support three times in the last two years, said his phone calls and letters to the FAA have been ignored.

"I don't want anyone that works for me not to have an hour for lunch," Hastings said. "And I don't have the responsibility of delivering hundreds of people a million times a year. I can tell you the stress level these people operate under is extraordinary and it would seem to me that we would all be doing everything we can to keep these people."